Week 5: More Sitcom

Today we did close readings and workshopping of the sitcom treatments, focusing on:

• Establishing/reminding the audience who the "hero" is and what their primary characteristics are (the qualities that make them act a certain way in the world, and that bring them into conflict). This creates dramatic need, the energy that will drive everything else in the story.
  
• Constructing a situation/crisis that specifically tests the "hero" and causes suffering to that individual in a way that is worse than what an ordinary person might experience
  
• Identifying three obstacles that the "hero" has to cope with, in a sequence that keeps things getting progressively worse

We also watched Episode 5 of Series 2 of The Office (U.K. version). We analyzed the main character's identifying characteristics, and the situation presented in the set-up, and how those combine to create maximum tension and conflict. We looked at the main obstacles and how they increase in intensity, culminating in a "dark night" moment and a resolution/payoff for all of the tension created during the episode.

HOMEWORK:

1. Based on your treatment, write the script for the set-up of your episode. Aim for 5 minutes, which is 10 pages of script (formatted like the Script Format example in the sidebar). The set-up ends when the "hero" has recognized the problem and is forming a course of action. The three obstacles will not happen in your set-up; they will happen later in the script.
   
2. Next week, bring both graphs from today (the one you made for your own story, and the one your reader gave to you).